


The Horrors Within

by nancynotruth



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt/Comfort, Incest, Love Confessions, M/M, Mostly hurt though, Pseudo-Incest, Self-Harm, Sibling Incest, Suicidal Thoughts, again kind of, kind of, no beta we die like ben
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:55:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25762483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nancynotruth/pseuds/nancynotruth
Summary: Dying of a non-preventable disease (there was a cure, but he wasn’t even willing to consider forgetting Klaus. Not to mention the awkward conversations that’d start), that was all well and good. But when the disease was Hanahaki, and when the object of your undying (literally) love who eponymously did not return said love, at least in the very romantic way Ben ached for, can talk to the dead...things get a bit more sludgy.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves/Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz (mentioned)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 130





	1. Chapter 1

Ben felt the first tickle in his chest when he was eleven. Too young, looking back, even though he’s technically only fourteen right now. Klaus has been aging him up, probably without even realizing, and maybe his mind is older, too. It takes real maturity to be a practically unheard spectator for thirteen years, to have everything he does say get lost in translation. To watch his siblings (all except one, but that was an entirely different matter) mourn his death, their bloodshot eyes passing straight over him, nothing he could do. Watching them move on from him was almost harder. If his shitty childhood hadn’t already done the job, being a ghost would have made him grow up fast.

But at eleven, all Ben knew was that the tickle in his chest wasn’t like the routine stirring of the Horror. It was lighter, more persistent, and seemed to be fighting its way up his throat. But Ben knew he could keep it down. He’d trained for this. And he was right in the middle of an incredibly sleep deprived game of spin the bottle with Klaus and about ten pillows they’d splayed out to complete their circle. Ben was wondering what would happen if the bottle didn’t actually land on a pillow, if it landed on Klaus (his brother, but not really, Allison said.) (Luther had said the same thing, when he’d asked.) (He still didn’t know why he’d asked in the first place). And then that tickle in his throat.

He lasted fifteen more minutes. So, so many weird, gross make-out sessions with moldy old pillows while Klaus whooped in the background, before the tickle (and the urge to leave because he didn’t know what he’d _do_ if the bottle actually landed on Klaus) got to be too much.

“I’m going to bed,” he said, pushing the bottle away.

“At four A.M.?” Klaus asked, rolling his eyes. “Whatever, loser.”

“You can’t lose at spin the bottle.”

“Then how come you just did?”

Ben threw one of the pillows over his shoulder at Klaus’ face, deliberately wide. He didn’t actually want to _hurt_ him. Klaus was usually really nice. The only one who didn’t always seem scared of the Horror inside Ben, just waiting to be released.

“Wait!” Klaus called, and Ben turned halfway back to see Klaus staring at the bottle, which was pointing right towards him. “I think I owe you something.”

Ben couldn’t even breathe. He was eleven, _god,_ just eleven. He didn’t know what he wanted, or how to act, or how to deal with the feelings inside of him when all he’d ever been taught was how to suppress the Horror when it wasn’t needed. So when Klaus crossed the room and kissed him on the cheek, soft and slow and maybe with a bit of tongue, Ben ran out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

He barely made it to the bathroom before he coughed up his first ever flower.

By the time Ben was thirteen, he’d made a tenuous peace with his affliction. It wasn’t horrible, just a flower every now and again, more when he spent too much time around Klaus. But he couldn’t just stop spending time around Klaus because of a few stupid flowers.

So, he practiced. He contained the Horror, he contained the flowers, he contained all of his feelings in an easy to browse file cabinet. Neatly color coded tabs showing the times he’d imagined kissing Klaus, the brother who wasn’t really his brother. All of the times he’d looked at Klaus with something other than platonic affection had an entire cupboard of their own. The one thing he refused to do was compile evidence that Klaus might like him back.

He’d researched, in the dead of the night, using incognito mode on the contraband cell phone he shared with his sheltered siblings, crouching in the one spot in his room that couldn’t be found by the cameras. Hanahaki was only for unrequited love (god, he hated that word) (he was beginning to hate the word _love_ , too).

The coughing hurt, and it was beginning to hurt more. Whole stems were scratching his throat raw, and the thorns on the roses were the absolute worst. The Horror (the one with the tentacles. He now had two Horrors warring inside of him) liked to take the moments he was in pain, when his concentration was dropping, to force its way out. If he wasn’t careful, he could kill his entire family because of one stupid rose.

He could kill Klaus.

When he was fourteen, the bleeding became worse. He collapsed on the field one time, on a mission, and Luther had to drag him out of the line of fire as the Horror beat at him with its tentacles. Ben was barely able to hold it back from crushing his brother’s ribs.

“What are you _doing?_ ” Luther asked. “You could’ve gotten us killed. What were you thinking, number six?”

“Nothing,” Ben snapped. He’d been thinking about how Klaus’ hair was flying back in the wind, and how brave he looked out on the field. And then Klaus had looked over at him and smiled, like Ben was someone special, maybe even someone he loved. And Ben had lost control.

“Is that blood?” Luther asked tiredly, touching Ben’s mouth. “Do I need to call Mom?”

“No.”

“Can you still fight?”

“Yes.”

Luther shrugged. “Okay.”

And then he was off. Leaving Ben alone, bleeding, and barely in control of the horror.

When it had finally happened, they were in the middle of their worst fight yet. _You say that about every fight_ , Klaus’s voice whined in the background of his mind. _Whatever,_ Ben thought. This fight was bad.

And in the middle, he started vomiting flowers and blood and he just. Couldn’t. Stop.

In his final seconds, a terrible image flashed in front of his eyes. Klaus, seeing the flowers that had spilled out of his mouth, putting the pieces together. Luther, seeing the blood, blaming himself for not stopping it sooner. The family turning against each other, arguing about who Ben had been in love with and how long it had been going on and who was to blame.

_Take me,_ he whispered to the Horror. _Don’t leave anything behind._

The Horror, for once, was only too happy to oblige. And in the final seconds of rending, tearing, exhilarating pain, Ben couldn’t hear Klaus screaming his name, Allison trying to Rumor the Horror, Luther wrestling his way past a completely impenetrable line of heaving tentacles.

He saw the villain—or the person they’d been fighting, at least, it was so hard to tell who was a real villain when one of them had raised you—being ripped apart, and the flowers that were still fighting their way out of his throat being ground to mulch on the floor of whatever high-class building they were in right now.

And all he could think, in his very last seconds, was _thank you._

He should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy.

Dying of a non-preventable disease (there was a cure, but he wasn’t even willing to consider forgetting Klaus. Not to mention the awkward conversations that’d start), that was all well and good. But when the disease was Hanahaki, and when the object of your undying (literally) love who eponymously did not return said love (at least in the very romantic way Ben ached for), can talk to the dead, things get a bit more sludgy.

Ben knew that he’d never forget the look on Klaus’s face when he showed up for the first time, in ghost form. Absolute elation, with eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep and so many mascara streaks that he seemed to have given up reapplying.

“Ben!” Klaus threw himself forwards, and fell straight through him.

“Nice try, wiseass.” Ben’s voice didn’t shake, and he was glad. He didn’t think he could get through this if he cried.

“I missed you,” Klaus said from the floor. “I missed you so much.”

“Well, here I am,” Ben said, jamming his fingers into his leather jacket’s pockets so that he wouldn’t try to help Klaus up, or do something even stupider like try to comb his hair back or wipe his tears away. “Anything else you need to say before I pass on?”

“No!” Klaus said. Ben shrugged and turned towards the light. The ache in his chest was even worse than the Hanahaki had been.

Oh, god. If he could only hug Klaus one more time.

“Don’t go,” Klaus whispered.

And Ben turned back. Because how could he not?

It was hard. So much harder than those years of love when he was just a kid (the kid he still was, really, if Klaus hadn’t been changing him. What would he have looked like if he’d grown up naturally?). He watched Klaus get laid, for money and for fun, and learned exactly what sounds he made when people did things he liked. He knew what those things were, too. He kept a running list, and he’d go over it in his head whenever Klaus and his conquest of the day would drift into sleep, committing it to memory as some sick kind of he-didn’t-know-what.

He saw Klaus get high, with nothing he could do to stop him. He saw Klaus overdose, and the phone was _right there_ , but his fingers went through the numbers like they weren’t even there. But _he_ was the one who wasn’t there, right? Unless Klaus saw fit to pay attention to him, he didn’t even have anyone to talk to. Klaus was always too high to summon any more ghosts, and when he tried, they were always murderers or republicans or something equally repulsive.

And then there was Dave. _Dave_. Dave, who complimented Klaus so perfectly, did everything that Ben was supposed to do but so much better. Ben didn’t even know if Klaus could see him, when he was in Vietnam. If all the other ghosts that came with being sober covered him right up, if Klaus could even look past Dave anymore.

But Ben was watching. He was watching Dave have what he never could, and he was happy for Klaus. He was even happy for Dave, although it was a happiness tinged with jealousy and hunger. That was the kind of love that prompted the Hanahaki. Pure, selfless, irrational. Ben had given into it when he was eleven. It was nice to see Klaus experience it, now.

And then, Dave was dead. And Klaus couldn’t summon him, and Ben couldn’t help, and Klaus was dead, and Vanya was starting the apocalypse, and he was corporeal, and then he was a kid again. And Luther was staring straight at him, mouth open in shock. Allison was hugging him. Vanya was passed out, Diego was turning away to hide his tears, little baby Five (the same size as the rest of them, now) was looking inconceivably smug about bringing him back to life. As if that’s what he wanted.

Klaus was standing off to the side, vaguely miffed, in the school uniform he’d been wearing during that spin the bottle game so long ago.

And the petals poured out of Ben’s mouth, staining the dirt and Allison’s dress dark blood red, thirteen years of repressed yearning spilling out of him as he gave everything he had left to keep the original Horror in.

_Dying twice at the same age,_ he thought. _Must be some kind of record._


	2. The Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben died, AGAIN, vomiting flowers into the dirt and practically spelling out "I have Hanahaki" in shiny lights. His family knows, now. Klaus knows. And Klaus can still see him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Klaus’ arms were crossed, head held high, shoulders in the stiff posture of a Vietnam vet. That pose should’ve looked ridiculous on a fourteen year kid, a kid whose voice still broke and who sometimes pretended he had to shave but never did. To Ben, Klaus looked beautiful. Klaus always looked so beautiful.

Ben wondered how he looked to Klaus. Was he fourteen again? Sixteen? Thirty? Whatever age he was, Ben knew he wasn’t beautiful.

“Would it have really made a difference?” He asked, crossing his own arms, not sure whether to be defensive or angry or tired or somehow all three at once.

“Fuck, Ben, I don’t know. Would it have made a difference if you could’ve gotten the surgery and survived? Would it have made a difference if you hadn’t died in front of your entire family _again_? We have to live with that, you know. Or have you forgotten what living is like?”

“Yeah, and you really think Dad would’ve paid for the surgery? And that all of you would’ve just been completely cool with me having Hanahaki?” The word came out harsh, tasted almost as sharp as the roses that had ended his life for a second time. He guessed he was going for angry, then. “It wouldn’t have been my bid to be special. I wouldn’t have been the weak little kid who just couldn’t get a handle on his emotions. You really think Dad wouldn’t have just put me in more training sessions and told me to master my emotions?”

“I think I could’ve helped,” Klaus said, taking a step towards Ben. “I think you wouldn’t’ve have had to go through it alone.”

“You were in the mausoleum every other day,” Ben said, taking what was hopefully an unobtrusive step back. “You didn’t need anything else on your plate.”

“You handled it! I could’ve handled it, too!”

_You would’ve killed me so much sooner. I never would’ve stopped puking flowers if you were in the room with me._

“Five years is a long time,” Ben said, looking at the floor. “You were high out of your mind for at least three. You couldn’t have helped, Klaus.”

“Five years?” Klaus asked, almost in a whisper. “You were…”

“Eleven.”

“Eleven. Holy shit.” Klaus took a deep breath. “You knew this person since you were eleven?”

Ben had been dreading this part. He honestly didn’t know what he was going to say, when Klaus finally asked the question he’d been avoiding for over twenty years. Maybe, if he’d actually lived and been able to get a decent therapist and moved on with some nice person who was _not_ his fucking brother, he’d be able to say it. But not now. Not with Klaus. And certainly not with anyone else, because he was dead. Again.

“Yeah,” he said, shrugging. “Klaus, I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Who was she?” Klaus asked, completely ignoring all of his own pet peeves about assuming romantic orientation. Hypocrite. Ben would let him keep assuming, of course. Anything to throw Klaus off the right track.

“Shirley Temple,” Ben said. “I was watching one of her movies, and suddenly…”

“It was not Shirley Temple,” Klaus snapped. “Who _was_ she, Ben?”

“Pogo.”

“I will train and I will make you corporeal and then I will punch your goddamn lights out. Tell me who she was.”

“It was this girl I saw at Griddy’s,” Ben said, slipping into the alibi he thought that he’d died without ever having to use. “She had dark brown hair and these gorgeous hazel eyes.” _You have dark brown hair and gorgeous hazel eyes._ “She ate her donut all in one bite, just shoved it into her mouth and knocked back an entire glass of cocoa. Then she turned around and smiled right at me, like we were sharing a secret.” _You don’t smile at me that way, not anymore. Not since I died._ “I was never able to get that out of my head.” _Because I practiced this exact wording for hours every night, so it would sound believable. I made up this girl and I tried to love her._

“And you got Hanahaki from what, that one meeting?” Klaus tried to raise his eyebrow, and failed miserably. Ben had to stifle a giggle.

“I saw her around, sometimes. At the park, at the library. I never got up the nerve to talk to her, but every time I saw her she’d smile at me. I just—I could never get over her, and I didn’t want to forget her.”

“You could’ve just talked to her, you know.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Yes, I’m right! I bet she’s somewhere around here, too, because we’re in the past. You have a second chance, dude! I could make you corporeal, and you could just go up to her and say ‘hey, I’m Ben, I died because I love you.’ Simple.”

“That is literally the furthest thing from simple.”

“For fuck’s sake, Ben, don’t you want to be cured?”

“I am cured. I’m dead.”

“Five brought you back, he can bring you back again. We can find a way.”

“Why do you think I want that?” Ben snapped, gritting his teeth together. “Why do you think I want to come back to life? Just so I can cough up some more flowers and die?”

“The surgery—”

“Screw the surgery. I’m not getting the surgery.”

“Why the hell not, Ben? Why would you take death over remembering this one random girl you’ve never even talked to?”

“Because I love her,” Ben said, fisting his hands in his pockets. “You loved Dave, and I love her more.”

“You don’t know shit about Dave,” Klaus said, finally angry. It almost made Ben feel happy. At least now, they were on the same level.

“I was there the whole time, in Vietnam. I saw you and Dave, and I was happy for you. I was. You love each other.” Ben took a deep breath, tried to stop his voice from shaking like his tenuous grip on his sanity. “Hanahaki love is more. It’s multiplied. It’s loving someone so much more than you love yourself, that sometimes you forget you even exist outside of them. It’s throwing up bloody roses because she looked at me and her eyes lit up. It’s throwing up bloody roses because she looked at someone else. It’s knowing every single little thing about her, and running over it in my mind every night. It’s not telling anyone because I couldn’t risk Dad making me get the surgery and having to forget. It’s watching you and Dave, and being happy for you, because you love each other.”

“Me, and Dave?” Klaus asked, and like an underwater grenade the shockwaves of what he’d just said rippled over Ben. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. If he’d been alive, he wouldn’t have been able to breathe, and then maybe Klaus would’ve done CPR…“Did you just say me and Dave?”

“No,” Ben said, more to himself than to Klaus. Twenty years. He’d kept this hidden away for twenty _goddamn_ years. “No.”

“You didn’t…you didn’t know Dave when you…when you were eleven.”

“No,” Ben whispered. The echo of his nonexistent heartbeat thrummed in his ears. The Horror writhed in his stomach. He’d be puking whole rosebushes, if he were alive.

“Brown hair,” Klaus murmured, touching his own hair. “Brown eyes.”

Ben just shook his head, backing away now, chest paralyzed, his own eyes wide.

  
“I used to eat donuts, all in one bite. I used to drink cocoa.”

Ben kept backing away, just one foot behind the other. Only a few more steps. His legs were incorporeal, but somehow they felt so heavy.

  
“…me?” Klaus asked, as though it were even a question anymore, placing the hand that used to say GOODBYE on his chest with his fingers splayed out. His lips were pink and his eyes were wide and Ben had never, _never_ loved anyone or anything more that he loved Klaus.

With one more step, he was through the wall and running. Past Vanya, crying in the stairwell. Past Diego, sharpening his knives with vindictive force. Past Luther, diligently training in the courtyard. Maybe Klaus would know where he was. They had spent fifteen years together, after all. Klaus knew pretty much everything about him.

But Ben knew Klaus so, _so_ much better. Klaus had followed Dave to the front lines, he would follow Dave to the mausoleum, probably without even a second thought. But Dave wasn’t here. Only Ben.

And Ben wasn’t enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always thought, hey, if I ever write another chapter of The Horrors Within it'll be a nice happy ending or something equally sad from Klaus' point of view. Apparently not. However, I really did enjoy writing in this style again, and I'm very happy with how this chapter turned out! 
> 
> If you feel like it, please do leave a comment or kudos. I appreciate them SO much. Thank you for reading!!! Stay safe 💙


	3. The Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe Klaus never would have found him, or even looked. Maybe Ben would’ve stayed in the moldy old mausoleum with all the other useless ghosts and slowly gone insane (more insane). However, in his mind-numbing panic, Ben had forgotten one vital detail: Klaus was fourteen again.

Maybe Klaus never would have found him, or even looked. Maybe Ben would’ve stayed in the moldy old mausoleum with all the other useless ghosts and slowly gone insane (more insane). However, in his mind-numbing panic, Ben had forgotten one vital detail: Klaus was fourteen again.

He thought he’d been down there for two days, maybe three (it wasn’t like he could scratch a nail on the wall or anything. He couldn’t even touch the wall) when the doors creaked open and in the brightness a living person stumbled into the mausoleum. Ben pretended he didn’t know who it was, forced himself to think that maybe it was Diego or Pogo. But he knew, from the rhythm of the breathing and the sound of the footsteps. He knew those sounds better than he knew his own heartbeat.

Maybe because he hadn’t properly heard it in over twenty years.

“Dad,” Klaus whimpered. “Please, Dad.”

Ben knew the seven of them (the two of them) were siblings, no matter what Allison and Luther’s delusions said. But he was pretty sure that Reginald Hargreeves wasn’t their dad. He’d bought them off their real parents, had controlled every aspect of their lives, had turned them into the ruined adults they would one day become. Sometimes, Ben blamed Reginald for his Hanahaki, even though he knew Reginald wasn’t responsible. It didn’t matter whether they were siblings or not. He and Klaus could never…could never.

“You’ll stay inside, Number Four, until you conquer your fears.”

It was strange, hearing Klaus called Number Four again. His siblings had staged a semi-revolt a few months after his death, refusing to answer to their numbers. Even Luther had gone along with it, semi-begrudgingly, after Klaus had managed to frame the whole thing as some kind of tribute to Ben. After all of these years, the nostalgia of hearing a Number felt like a gut punch.

Ben wondered what it would’ve been like, to be called his Number again. He wondered how his siblings had explained his absence, or if they’d just dragged his broken and bloody corpse to the house. He hoped they’d gotten rid of the flowers beforehand. He wondered if they were going to erect the statue again, or if his death hadn’t been public enough to warrant a memorial this time around. He kind of hoped for the latter.

“No, Dad, please…”

The doors slammed shut, and Klaus’ voice broke into a sob. Already, the ghosts were beginning to close in on him, fingers outstretched and moaning his name like a deep holy chant. Like if they said it enough, maybe he would become a benevolent god and give them the help they wanted.

Ben tried not to envy their belief. They still thought that things could get better.

“Get away!” Klaus swiped at the air around him, breathing fast and jagged like he’d just choked down a lungful of gravel. “I can’t…not again.”

Ben should leave. Obviously, Ben should leave. If he talked to Klaus, they’d both get their hearts broken and Klaus would be even more upset than he was right now, weeping in a ball on the floor. Ben could just cross over to the light right now and never have to worry about anything ever again. Or he could hide in these shadows forever, just let the other ghosts block him out just like they had in Vietnam.

Ben sighed. Who was he kidding? Whether he was throwing up flowers or not, Ben still had Hanahaki. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for Klaus.

“Jesus Christ, I can’t leave you alone for five minutes,” he said, stepping out of the deeper shadows and into the slightly lighter ones.

“B-Ben?” Klaus asked in a tiny whisper. Ben was just relived he hadn’t said ‘Dave.’

“Yeah,” he said, crouching down in front of Klaus so they could be on roughly the same level. “I’m surprised the old man didn’t throw you down here before now.”

“I’ve been on my best behavior,” Klaus said, smiling weakly.

“Great,” Ben said. “Now I get to watch you go through withdrawal. Again.”

“First time for this body,” Klaus said, pulling himself to a siting position. His muscles were still like coiled springs, and his eyes were blotchy, but at least he was able to sit up.

“Then you probably took too much, idiot. Please tell me Diego tried to stop you.”

“Nope.”

Ben ran a hand through his hair. It didn’t even tremble. At least he’d had a good hair day when he died. “You’re a moron, you know that, Four? If you’d just ask for some goddam help once in a while, maybe you won’t end up living on the streets this time around.”

  
“You’re acting normal,” Klaus said, head lolling to one side and eyebrows scrunched together. He looked adorable, Ben thought, then he caught himself and banished the thought from his mind. Then again. Then again.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, a little too stiffly. “Of course I’m acting normal.”

“You called me a moron.”

“You _are_ a moron. Are you drunk, or just high?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I want to know how much hell I’m in for.” _I want to know if you’re okay. I want to know that you didn’t go off the deep end when I abandoned you after telling you I love you. I want to know if_ we’re _okay._

“Yeah. I’m drunk.”

“Great. Why don’t you vomit in that corner, so I don’t have to see it?”

  
“I didn’t think you’d be acting normal,” Klaus said. “I don’t know what I thought you’d act like, but not normal.”

“Depends on what you mean by normal. Normal for being dead, I guess.” _I haven’t been normal since I was eleven. I haven’t been normal since I was born, or bought. Neither have you._

“They’re all crying,” Klaus said. “I think it’s hitting them even harder this time around.”

  
“Probably just time-travel shock.”

“You _died_ in front of them. You died in Allison’s arms.”

“So? Vanya almost destroyed the world, and Luther actually killed you.”

“They’re all trying to figure out who it is,” Klaus continued, like Ben hadn’t said anything. Which, to anyone but Klaus, would be true. “They know how you died.”

Ben sighed. “Look, Klaus, I don’t…”

“Want to talk about it? Yeah, I didn’t think so.” Klaus’ laugh was so sour, Ben could almost remember the phantom taste of bitterness on his tongue. “I haven’t told them, by the way.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? That’s all you’re gonna say?”

“Yeah. I’m dead, alright? Corrupt my memory if you want. It really doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t _matter?_ Benjamin Hargreeves, you’re saying it doesn’t matter that I killed you?”

“God, Klaus, get over yourself. You didn’t kill me, okay? I got sick, and then I died. Believe it or not, the world doesn’t revolve around you and your self loathing streak.”

“Completely normal,” Klaus muttered to himself.

“My name isn’t Benjamin,” Ben said. “You were _there_ when I got it. Do you seriously not remember my name?” He almost said _your own brother’s name_. The words were right there on the tip of his tongue, ready to spill out into the still air on a rush of breathless-breath, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t remind Klaus—remind himself—that they were brothers.

Like either one of them had ever forgotten.

“Shit, Ben, how are you so fucking normal? How are you not acting weird?”

“You do enough acting weird for both of us.”

“You…you tell me…and then you just…”

“Just because this is news to you,” Ben snapped, sweeping his arm from his chest to Klaus’ and letting it dangle, like he was asking for a handshake, like anyone could shake his hand anymore. “That doesn’t change anything for _me_ , okay? I’ve been acting completely normal since I was eleven.”

Klaus just sat there, staring into space a little bit to Ben’s right. Probably at another ghost. No matter how much Ben wanted to believe it, he wasn’t special. He was just another ghost following his brother around, wanting something that he could never have.

“This was a bad idea,” he said, picking himself up off the ground. “I hope he lets you out soon.”

“Wait!” Klaus called, and Ben stopped, back turned, hood up. “Don’t go,” said Klaus. And Ben remembered the first time he’d seen Klaus after he died, on the day that he realized his afterlife would be an endless hell. The day he knew that his sickness had followed him beyond the grave.

That was the worst thing about Hanahaki. It didn’t feel like a sickness. It felt like the center of your life, the one thing you couldn’t live without, all while it was slowly killing you. It felt like a perversion, and like a privilege. It felt like love.

“Fine,” Ben said, turning back to face Klaus, pulling his lips tight and hiding his face even further behind his hood. “If you throw up through me, I will wait for you in the afterlife and when you’re here I will kill you again. With tentacles.”

“Okay,” Klaus said, smiling despite the ring of screaming ghosts. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Ben didn’t say he was glad, too. He wanted to be anywhere else, with anyone to whom he hadn’t awkwardly and accidentally confessed his death-long love. Or he wanted to be right here, in the middle of a screaming circle of ghosts, with someone who loved him back.

“You’re my best friend,” Klaus said. “You are. Not Diego, not Vanya, not Dave. You.” Ben nodded. He knew that. He’d known that for a long time.

“And I do. Not like…that, but I do. You know I do.” Ben nodded again. Klaus had told him he loved him many times. Ben had never said it back. “I’m sorry I killed you.”

“You didn’t kill me. I got sick, and twisted, and disgusting. I killed myself.”

“You aren’t any of those things. Okay, maybe you are a bit disgusting, but that’s just because of the tentacles.” Klaus flailed his arms in a pale imitation of Ben’s man-crushing appendages. Ben cracked a weak smile.

“You’re my best friend, Ben,” Klaus said again. His voice was a mix between pleading and desperate, all strung out and about to crash. When Klaus was like this, he was too exhausted to say anything that wasn’t important. And he was always too tired to repeat himself.

“Yeah,” Ben said, sitting cross legged beside Klaus. Just this once, he allowed himself to soak up just being next to him. The way his hair fell into his messy, mascara-streaked eyes. His smile. Those couple of freckles on his nose.

Klaus held out his hand, the one with a messy scrawled HELLO in permanent marker. Ben put his hand on top of Klaus’, just close enough that they could both imagine that if either one of them moved his hand, they’d be touching.

“You’re my best friend too,” he said. And Klaus smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading this!! It was meant to be one chapter, but it kind of got away from me lol. An added complication was that I wrote the first chapter after being awake for 24 hours, which meant that I needed to be EXTREMELY tired in order to replicate the writing style for the later chapters. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and I hope you enjoy it too! Please let me know what you think in the comments, if you feel like it. I also appreciate kudos so, so much. 
> 
> Stay safe. Love you all.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this after being awake for over 24 hours straight, but somehow it hardly needed any editing. Is this the pinnacle of all of my achievements? 
> 
> No, but seriously. Thank you so much for reading. Let me know if I haven't tagged something important, and if you feel like it, please let me know what you think! I appreciate every single comment/kudos. Love you all.


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